Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1887-09-29
MoNGoLlAN TARTARs.

Rev. Father Gundy's Recital OF Ten
Years Labor with Them.
A strangely-attired Belgian priest
arrived on recent steamer from
China He is Rev. Father A. Gundy.
president of the Roman Catholic mis-
sions in Mongolia, where he has been
arduously laboring for ten years past.
he is man of about forty years of
age, with full flowing beard and a
rich silken gown of an oriental de-
sign. Other marks of dress betoken
him resident of land most remote
from ours A reporter sought an inter-
view with him. Said he:
"My life work has been with the Tar
tars who inhabit Mongolia, and the
scenes of my work have been close by
the great wall of China. The CONNER
cial emporium of Mongolia is K algan, a
town of 40. 900 Inhabitants. 1t is here
that the Russians come to buy chamois
skins and tea, which the Chinese resi-
dents of Mongolia raise in immense
quantities. The Mongolians themselves
despise tilling the ground. and as the
land belongs to the different tribes,
their chiefs haye been selling it off to
the Chinese.
1.-THE Mongolians are descend ants
of the old Tartars, and raise tens of
thousands of cattle and horses. Be-
yond this they do nothing except hunt.
They are a wild. ungovernable race,
living in tents. They are magnificent
horsemen, something like your wild
Indians. Their religion is Tartaric
Buddhism. One of their sacred tenn
Piles is at Kunbun. In Thibet the
great temple of U Lassa is constructed
after the manner of an Indian Budd-
hist temple. Only one or two Euro
peans have ever been admitted within
its sacred precincts. They think the
mere admission of a foreigner within
its portals would forever defile it.
1.-THE Russians who tried to invade
this country three years ago have re-
inquished their efforts. They got
two consulates established on the Mon
golian coast and they have had to
give way. They now have open ports
as far as Peking, but no further. All
the talk you hear of invasions from
the Russians now goes for nothing.
Mongolia is under the domain of
China.
THE country is largely desert. al
though with water it is exceedingly
productive. There are very rich mines
of copper and silver as well as mag
nificent beds of coal. Mongolia is
colder than China, and consequently
the inhabitants, although dressing
somewhat like the Chinese, put on
more clothes. They are unlike the
Chinese entirely otherwise. being more
aggressive and warlike. They are not
a tractable race by any means.
Hunting the chamois is great sport
with the Mongolians. They are skilled
horsemen and dead shots with their
weapons, variety of which they
use. They are also skillful with the
dart.
'1n the ten years that have been
there we have succeeded in converting
about twenty-five thousand of these
wild Tartars. Though wild they are
open to civilizing and humanizing in
f1uences; but there are so many of
them, and their country is so large,
that it takes long while to make
much effect upon them as a mass"
The reverend gentleman is accom-
panied by wealthy resident of Brus-
sells. Viscount de Benghem. who has
been making tour of certain parts of
Mongolia and studying up the habits
of the natives.-iSan Fra ncisco Erarn-
liner.